


Cabotage

by exosolarmoon



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - No Curse, Angst, Black Romance, Blackrom, Enemies, F/M, Mental Coercion, Princess!Emma, Torture, Vomit, forced alliances, idk not exactly but they are enemies with some ust, ish, it's always just angst, this is not a fluffy ficlet, villain!hook, why is it that whenever i write my actual otps they're never happy together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-12
Updated: 2015-08-21
Packaged: 2018-04-04 03:26:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4124011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/exosolarmoon/pseuds/exosolarmoon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They always did understand each other a little too well.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> it's really tragic that i don't write more than like one or two fics for a fandom before moving on to the next, and i'm trying to change that but it's slow going. u_u;; have this weird little cs au that's been floating around in my head lately.

“I need a ship,” is how Princess Emma announces herself onto the Jolly Roger.

The crew falls silent and parts like waves before her, cowed.

Captain Hook spots her, evidenced by the disgusted curl to his lips. “Fascinating, Princess. I’m afraid you’re looking in the wrong place. Try the forests; They likely have more than enough wood to build you a **raft**.”

“Let me rephrase: I need the Jolly Roger,” she says without missing a beat, picking up her heavy skirts so she won’t trip over them when she ascends the steps to the helm. She’s on a tight schedule, and the less time spent getting him to take her, the better.

Captain Hook barks a single, mocking laugh. “Ha!” His voice drops to an ugly snarl. “Find another ship.”

Emma stops her momentum less than a foot from the _dear_ captain.  “No,” she says, tipping her head back to meet his eye squarely. She will fight him to death for this if she has to, and, unfortunately, it seems rather likely that she’ll have to.

“And what, exactly, do you thing you’d be getting here, lass?” he breathes, crowding her space and curling his form around her in sexual intimidation. She could see every fleck in his furious, glittering, blue, blue, _blue_ eyes from up this close--much closer, indeed, than she ever normally allowed anyone, much less the villainous pirate captain that had terrorized her life and her kingdom for as she could remember. 

She’s used to him threatening her, but this is a little extreme, even for their turbulent relationship. (Enemy-ship. Whatever.) “A ride to the center of the Citadel in one week or quicker.” Her voice comes out gratifyingly steady against the beating of her heart, and if she’s breathless from his proximity, well, that’s her business. 

“And what _possessed_ you to think you’d get such a thing from _me?_ “ he snaps back, not even a little off-kilter.

“Listen.” she bites out. “ _I don’t care_. I don’t care about our history, I don’t care about what I have to do, and I certainly don’t care what you have against me. All I care about is ending this curse before it can touch my family, and that requires the fastest ship in this realm. As much as it hurts to admit it, that's the Jolly Roger.”

“Then you’re in an even worse place than I thought you were, _love_. Why on earth would I help you _end_ a curse? Putting aside, of course, why I wouldn’t have you walk the plank for your insolence in asking in the first place.”

Her voice drops to barely a breath. “I _will_ whisper into your crews’ minds and lead them in _mutiny_ against you if that’s what it takes. Don’t think that I won’t.” She’s far past caring about the morality of her actions. Her son is being threatened; she’ll rip open the sky if that’s what it takes.

He bares his teeth in something that might be a snarl or a sneer or a leer--she can never tell which, only that it’s never a smile.  “Oh, you’re welcome to try, darling.”

She forges on, ignoring him. “I can do that, would _happily_ do that, but you know what? If I do that, there’s one thing I’ll wonder about ‘till my dying breath.”

She leans in closer, their lips barely an inch apart. “I’ll wonder why you hated _me_ so much that you were willing to defend _Rumpelstiltskin_ with your **l i f e**.”

He froze, just as she’d hoped he would. He pulled back, inhaling as though he was going to speak, to argue, to tell her exactly how wrong she was... and then stopped. Licked his lips. Broke their staring contest to look around, almost uncomfortably. Tried to speak again. Failed.  He met her eye once more, only for a split second, then pushed around her roughly, scowling.

She suppressed her grin of triumph until his back was turned, wild, feral, hot victory tingling in her stomach.

“Weigh anchor, lads,” he called out over his crew (all of which were looking pointedly busy, as though they hadn’t been staring at the two of them just moments ago). “We have dangerous waters ahead of us.”

She managed to push the grin down to a mere smug look by the time he glanced back up at her at the helm. She could see the blue of his stare from here, brought out by the waters surrounding them, complemented by the metal on his clothing catching the dazzling sunlight. He makes a dangerous picture, the beautiful, remote man-in-black surrounded by his much rougher pirate crew, all scrambling to meet his demands before he decided to behead them... 

But what Emma found scariest of all was the glimmer of _approval_ visible on his handsome face.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> takes place before the first. emma is about 17-18ish here.

Every breath hurts. Emma can barely hear Cora’s retreating footsteps over the pounding haze that dominates all five of her senses. She blinks blearily at the top of the cavern where she’s being held (tortured), smell of her own vomit biting her airways, and wonders if Hook had followed his mistress (she hopes so) or if he’s still there (she hopes not).

A deep sigh from somewhere behind her answers her question.

“You know, Princess, if you could just tell us where young Baelfire is, this would be so much _easier_ ,” he says, his voice (and, presumably, his person) approaching her. She’s proven right when his tired face appears in the corner of his vision. 

(They‘ve all been in here for hours or days or years, she couldn’t say; him to press the button, Cora to talk and to tell him when to press the button, and Emma to scream when he presses the button. She can’t imagine he’s had an easy time of it, but forgive her for not being very sympathetic.)

She wishes she had the energy to spit on his face. She settles for a glare.

He narrows his eyes at her before disappearing. She hopes, rather pettily, that he’ll trip over one of the rocks littering the cave floor.

He doesn’t. Instead, he starts messing with the control panel, if the harmless, little, buzzing shocks coming through her binds aren’t just glitches.

They make her tense in anticipation of the pain, breath stilted and stomach tight... but the pain never comes, just the shocks. they continue on and on and on and on and on until her lungs burn and her extremities are numb and she wishes he would just press the button and be done with it, anything to make it _stop_ anything _anything anything anything_ -

She starts talking, desperate to take the edge off. That was probably his goal all along.

She can’t talk about Neal (that bastard-!), refuses to give him the satisfaction of knowing whatever he’s doing is working, and she will. not. beg.

So when she opens her mouth, the only thing left to come out of it is an attack.. “He killed her, didn’t he?”

The shocks stop.

It’s something she’s thought about ever since she’d first seen the tattoo, ever since she’d seen _Milah_ , and it’s as good a topic as any. Better than most, because this one might _hurt_ him. Really hurt him, in ways her sword cannot.

“You want revenge on Rumpelstiltskin because he killed her. Milah. Not because he took your hand.”

The silence is long, until he murmurs, flat and chill, “Give the lass a trophy.”

“That’s why you’re willing to be Cora’s lackey. She has something you need, and you don’t care what you have to do to get it. You don’t care if you have to live three hundred years to get your revenge.“ She realizes it all at once, a hundred little comments lining up and fitting together into a picture she’s never seen before, and her voice cracks in excitement. “You don’t care if you have to stand in one spot and press a button for a madwoman, you don’t care how many princesses you have to kidnap, you don’t care if you _lose your humanity_ , if that will let you get revenge on the man who killed your love. All that matters is that he pays with his life.”

“You seem to know all about it, Princess,” he says, carefully quiet and emotionless, and she knows she’s stuck a nerve.

“Three hundred years is a long time, though,” she says delicately, pulling it out of her sleeve like it’s her ace instead of a death wish. “Is this still really about Milah?”

He is silent, still.

“Are you sure that this hasn’t just become a grudge match?” she presses viciously. “A grudge-match against a man who wronged you centuries ago? Are you sure it’s still _Milah_ you’re seeing in your dreams, and not just blood and death and revenge?”

He makes a harsh, angry sound in the back of his throat.

“Because I don’t think it is. I think you see Rumpelstiltskin dying painfully, over and over and over in ways that hurt more every time. I think you’ve lived in hate for so long you don’t remember love-”

“Shut up.”

Her heart, battered and electrocuted and faltering, does an unsteady victory jig, and it shows in her tone. “You don’t remember what love is like. You don’t remember what it is. You don’t remember how. You don’t even remember the woman responsible for showing you what it could be like.”

“Shut _up_.”

“What was the color of her eyes?”

“ _Shut up_!”

“Oh, that’s right! You can’t remember, and she’s gone! And she isn’t ever coming back! She can probably see you right now, torturing princesses and running errands for that bitch. She probably thinks you’re just the lowest of the low, wondering why she ever looked twice at you. 

“Hell, if I were her, that’s what _I’d_ be thinking.”

“ _SHUT UP_.”

“I mean, how could _anyone_ ever love **_you_**? Your personality is lackluster, your morals are nonexistent, your actions u n f o r g i v a b l e. Honor? Looks? Don’t make me laugh, you filthy, _rotten_ **pirate**. Your heart is **pitch** , consumed by rage and hate and greed and **malice**. How can you call even yourself a man? You’re nothing but an impotent shell, something that’s existed too long to ever be considered alive again.

“I wish she could see you. See you and be _disgusted_ by what you’ve become. Gods know the rest of us are.”

She hears his fist come down on the button. Her bonds tighten up all at once, snapping around her wrists and ankles so hard her bones creak, and she realizes a fraction of a second too late that the jolts of electricity were the machine _letting her go_. 

He had been letting her go.

Her heart gives a tiny jolt of realization, before everything, _everything_ , _**everything**_ is washed away by the pain.

It soars through her bones, a hot, electric tide that chills as it sweeps, empty heat  and crushing force as it rends her flesh, slits her veins, unmaking her in agony. It stops, letting the full force of the voltage hit home, then it forces life back into her lungs for another round. It forms endless waves, hitting her again and again and again and again and-

her voice snaps and breaks into a scream she can barely hear, high and sharp. It tapers off as the pain fades slightly, leaving her dry-heaving and half-sobbing- 

and then she’s laughing, broken and deranged, mocking and despairing-

(she hears him leave, fleeing heels on the metal plating and the gate crashing shut behind him, but doesn’t quiet until darkness claims her, spreading out from the center of her chest to claim her battered body.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wrote this one a while ago, but was unsatisfied with it, and forgot about it till now. still kind of unsatisfied, but it's much better now, so...


End file.
